Re: [Fwd: An inspiration] [re Perlman]

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

(This may or may not have gone through, substantially as below, the first 
time.  If it did, and this is a repeat--Sorry!  Lori:  If you get this and 
your list doesn't, can you forward?  Thanks.)


Lorele's posting of this lovely story--which I've also received on a Jewish 
(non-music) list and from friends--brought to mind the lovely song by Si 
Kahn (son, I believe, of a Reform Rabbi; singer/songwriter and lefty/union 
organizer), aptly titled "What You Do with What You Got," composed--oddly, 
I'm not sure in what year--for the International Year of the Handicapped.

The refrain goes:

"It's not just what you're born with,
It's what you choose to bear;
It's not how large your share is,
But how much you can share.
And it's not the fights you dream of,
But those you really fought.
It's not just what you're given,
It's what you do with what you got.'

(Copyright by Si Kahn, ASCAP--again, not sure what year)

I have this song beautifully recorded by the trio Gordon Bok/Ann Mayo 
Muir/Ed Trickett on their Folk-Legacy recording MINNEAPOLIS CONCERT (FSI 110 
in LP).

If anyone (Hankus?) has an address for Itzhak Perlman (say that of his 
manager), I'd like to let him know about this song; I imagine he'd find it 
quite moving.

--Robert Cohen


> > (True story)
> >
> > On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give
> > a
> > concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.   If
> > you
> > have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is
> > no
> > small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and
> > so he
> > has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see
> > him
> > walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an
> > awesome
> > sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his
> > chair.
> >
> > Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the
> > clasps
> > on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward.
> > Then
> > he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to
> > the
> > conductor and proceeds to play.
> >
> > By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he
> >
> > makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently
> > silent
> > while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to
> > play.
> > But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few
> > bars,
> > one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it
> > went off
> > like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound
> > meant.
> > There was no mistaking what he had to do.
> >
> > People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured
> > that he
> > would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches
> > and limp
> > his way off stage -- to either find another violin or else find
> > another
> > string for this one."
> >
> > But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then
> > signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he
> > played
> > from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such
> > power
> > and such purity as they had never heard before.
> >
> > Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work
> >
> > with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that
> > night
> > Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating,
> > changing,
> > recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he
> > was
> > de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never
> > made
> > before.
> >
> > When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then
> > people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of
> > applause from
> > every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and
> >
> > cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated
> > what he
> > had done.
> >
> > He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us,
> >
> > and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent
> > tone --
> > "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much
> > music you
> > can still make with what you have left."
> >
> > What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I
> > heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life -- not
> > just
> > for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his
> > life to
> > make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the
> > middle
> > of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music
> > with
> > three strings, and the music he made that night with just three
> > strings was
> > more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever
> > made
> > before, when he had four strings.
> >
> > So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world
> > in
> > which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and
> > then,
> > when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.
> >
> >

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